I will say a short summary of the key components but can not possibly describe everything and will not attempt to.

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General
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The city used to be full of bland, stupidly boring drivers that do nothing but clog the roads and tail each other like lemmings. I guess that describes plenty of real life drivers and roads too. A new breed of folks have moved into Liberty City now, and they intend on ripping the city apart in any way they can.

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Core Components:
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Car Crews:
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Car Crews are Thugs. They have a Leader and their goal is essentially to take over their territory. But this will never happen, because no crew has loyalty with any other. So the result is a constant battle for turf all over the city. And speaking of loyalty, that is in short supply too. If the Leader fails to continue allowing its members to rampage as they require, there is a high probability (configurable as are a billion things) they will turn Rogue and punish those around them for * up their objectives.

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Street Thugs:
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The Civilians of Liberty City have taken note of, and are not immune to, the effects of these crews. Many have themselves turned to violence as a means to accomplish their objectives if they have one. It's also brought out the simply-insane that just want to take part and themselves enjoy turning the city to ash.

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Mayhem:
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Due to the constant, endless war that now rages, the previously dependable vehicles of the city now suffer tremendous shortages of parts and good maintenance practices. The result is an ever increasing list of common mechanical failures. These range from simply blowing out tires all the way to a car having a lot of simultanious failures from the lights to the hatches to the motor and tanks. The nastiest are stuck throttles if the other failures are present, as these essentially become out of control missles headed in out of control directions. It could be a building, another vehicle or worse it's headed for. Regardless of what that is, unless it's ummune to fire it's going to burn, and in many cases it's going to explode. Badly.

Another side effect of these failures directly affects Civs themselves and not just related to vehicle maintenance either. The weapons they carry are seriously becoming degraded and are dangerous to the owners too, not just their targets.

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Player Assist:
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Due to the nature of everything described above, the default abilities and resources available to us as players is now totally insufficient. The Player Assist component addresses a huge amount of configurable options so we can make it be exactly how we want it to be. The default settings that ship with AW have a little regeneration turned on for health, armor and ammo, as well as vehicle regeneration so we can keep the action going if we choose to drive without having to constantly change cars. But that's also easily done too with the Advanced Car Selector.

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Advanced Car Selector:
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While helping me debug and test both the orginal project during experimentation, and especially in the new project, Motorsport71 (more on him in Special Thanks) mentioned in pssing "maybe a car spawner would be cool?".

Yes, yes it would. After creating the initial version, I wound up growing it into a fairly hefty system unto itself and it's now capable of being used to instantly select vehicles from an origanized customizable list, including base and feture colors, and bring it into the world with the engine running, the player in the driver seat and boom. Just spawn and drive or fly away.

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From the Requirements file:
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Ambient Wars Revival 2010 v2.0.1.0 - Requirements

GAME:
PC GTAIV version 1.0.7.0 or later. Previous versions may work, but they are not tested or supported by me.

You can find ScriptHookDotNet and links to everything else except Ambient Wars at the following support site:

[url]http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=392325[/url]

You may use any functioning ASI loader you want. I use XLiveLess because it is 1 file (Xlive.dll) and it works. It can prevent saving in the normal way using beds so you may want a different loader. I use CONTROL+S provided by Ambient Wars to save whenever and whereever I want (except while driving...) so I could care less about bed saves not working. Auto saves work as normal regardless.

Installation:
1 - Copy or unpack ScriptHook.dll, ScriptHookDotNet.asi and xlive.dll (or other ASI loader) into the root of GTAIV.
2 - Create a scripts folder off the root of GTAIV
3 - Copy or unpack the contents of AmbientWars into the scripts folder.
4 - Load the game using LaunchGTAIV.exe (if using XLiveLess) or the game directly if using other loaders that support direct EXE launch.
5 - Enter the world and confirm ScriptHook is working by pressing the tilde key. If the command console opens then you have done it correctly and ScriptHook is running so press again to close the console.

5b- Optional: type ReloadScripts into the console and confirm ScriptHook reloads 3 scripts from AmbientWars. This 100% confirms ScriptHook is working in the game and can also be used after changing AmbientWars.ini file settings to have it reload your changes without needing to restart the game. If this is your intent then toggle AW off (F9 is default to toggle on/off), make changes, ReloadScripts, toggle back on, test changes.

6 - Press the Ambient Wars hotkey (F9 is default). If you see your health and armor flash and grow then AW has turned ON. If you see your health go to full and the armor flash between 50 and 100 then AW has toggled OFF.
7 - Let the carnage begin!

If you have problems or can not open the console in the game world read the AW.TroubleShooting.2010.Txt file for possible causes.

Uninstallation:
Close the game and remove the files you added.

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From the troubleshooting file:
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Q: Common Problem: You can't open the ScriptHookDotNet command console while in the game world and Ambient Wars doesn't appear to work:

A: That is not Ambient Wars failing. See the following.

If you can't open the SHDN command console while in the game world, then Ambient Wars likely isn't working either.
That's not Ambient Wars failing. That is ScriptHook/SHDN related:

If you've installed everything as specified in my ReadMe and pressing the Tilde Key in game (in the game world loaded, not the main menu) doesn't open the ScriptHookDotNet command console, that is ScriptHookDotNet failing to load, and it's probably because the core ScriptHook (C++) file needs one of the following redist updates.

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Q: Common Problem: You have a functioning ScriptHook and when you turn on Ambient Wars you see an error related to access denied of files.

A: You are probably under UAC control and Windows is preventing access to required files. Run As Administrator = Problem Gone.
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Q: GTAIV with Ambient Wars seems to crash / CTD often and random, especially when a lot is going on including huge explosions and a lot of action.

A: Disable ALL GPU and CPU overlocking and see how it does. Don't concern yourself with it running like *. Concern yourself with a reduction in crashing.
If it reduces or eliminates the frequency it is crashing, then you have a hardware or heat problem you need to address to get a stable gaming experience.
------------------------------------------------

The underlying ScriptHook core and SHDN layers support EFLC so this -should- as well although I have not explicitly tried it yet. Didn't get the packs yet I'm back temporarily from contract and have spent effort into the project just using the core GTAIV with latest patches.

As far as stability, this is hugely more stable than any previous version in history due to me working with HazardX (SHDN author) and Motorsport71 (AW fanatic) in isolating and fixing many, many core stability issues. This version still has bugs but it's a far cry (MUCH improved) frmo any previous version hands-down.

Would be great to know why it has been given such a low rating considering the work put into it and environment it produces. If you're going to rate it as *, leave a comment explaining why. Perhaps its something that could be fixed, changed and enhanced, or perhaps you didn't get it to load and incorrectly think it is an Ambient Wars problem instead of viewing the troubleshooting and requirements guide first. Thanks.

Appreciate that but I'd just like to know if the reason it got low is a real, actual meaningful reason or if it's because folks are having trouble getting it to work. In the latter case, it's very likely not Ambient Wars failing. There are a number of known causes of failing to get it loading and none of them are due to AW itself. I have them listed in the requirements and troubleshooting files. My goal is to help anyone that -is- having trouble getting it to load, get it loaded so they can properly evaluate it. That's it. I'm currently working on a couple internal bugs. Will release a new version when / if i confirm I've isolated one of them.

Additionally in case it's not clear yet, I would like to know if people don't like it and why. The reason I want to know is because maybe you've thought of something I haven't considered, and if I knew what that was it might make it better for everyone and that is the ultimate goal. Something fun for those that want Liberty City ripping its own guts out. Of course if you don't want chaos and destruction then this definitely isn't the mod for you.

Yep there are all kinds of ideas floating around me head and the ones you mention are in the pool and have actually been talked about in a few posts here and there in the older thread. The 1st priority though is creating a truly stable foundation from which to do these things, and this new project is as close to that objective as ever. The next version will have a new War Presets option ranging from 1-Unrest to 6-Armageddon to instantly set a batch of properties related to spawn changes and rates. The next version after will be entirely focused on performance analysis to try and squeeze back some cycles because no performance refinements at all have been done, so although it is stable, it is not effecient.

So that's 2 more versions. But after that, I'll start considering new features again and it could very well be some of these ideas. I already, in preperation for this type of thing, created a custom vector and a custom task vector class that can randomly chew and pull vectors from it to be assigned as targets. In fact in the current version you may notice the occasional Street Thug running full speed for 8 to 15 seconds like it's trying to get somewhere. They are. They are trying to reach a randomly selected vector chosen and assigned as part of the experiment. The vectors are just random dumps I created around the initial spawn island to test the thing. But it works, so it could grow and get used in all kinds of ways.

I came up with an idea... there was a movie called crank where if the guy didn't keep himself excited his heart would stop beating. So by keeping yourself in motion, killing thugs, out running cops, etc, your health meter doesn't drop. If your character stops keeping up a "Quota" of some sort, his health meter will tick down till he dies. I know there are health packs in the game, i wonder if some of the Thugs could be given a low drop rate so you could get a boost of health. That would be cool.

The latest version includes a new War Presets so you can quickly scale up/down the amount of violence int he city with just a combo box selection and a save.

But for clarity all the properties are available from the editor so if you want to increase just the street thugs and not the car crews you can easily do that. Just examine the street thugs node in the editor and let me know if more comments need to be made or if some are not clear. the max can exist, max per tick and max chance created type properties are the most central to contolling the amounts and how often things happen in the cores.

Sure thing. You need to update to the latest SHDN as described in the requirements file. The latest version added a number of bug fixes but also added the ability burst tires finally, which AW takes full advantage of.

Possibly due to WarpCharIntoCar which some people experience issues with. It is a known problem. The next version of AW will have the function that uses that disabled until a new SHDN release that helps address it gets pushed out.

The next AW release is being tested right now and I will be releasing it within the next 30min if the latest batch of changes appear stable. Time now is 10:33pm CST so probably by 11pm v2.0.1.3 will push out.

LOVE this mod, but I have a small request - could you give the option of DISABLING certain or all weapons, and have the peds still go apeshit and just fistfight each other? I tried setting all weapons to 2000 but they still spawn normally.

I really want to see a zombie mod, but none exist for the later version of the game. A no weapons option would be the closest thing. :/

Excellent glad you're liking it! I'm having a good time building this monster. As far as weapons go that is litterally about the only thing that hasn't been touched. The weapons selection code. Way to many other things have been the priority so I haven't looked into the weapon at all.

But what I will do is just add a quick couple properties in AllThugs such as NothingButFists and NothingButMelee (bats, knives etc) and in the arming code do a check on those and arm, or disarm, accordingly. The defaults for both will always be False of course as new versions ship but that should do for now. Currently in the middle of very big critical edits to the car crews so not sure ETA on next.

lol.. that is goofy has * GOD that made me laugh so hard. I did what I said and tested for the * of it. Was walking over to a street thug and he came running at me full speed with a Baseball bat posed like he was going to knock a ball out of the park, so I shot him in the head. And watching 3 goons going at it with a knife, a bat and a pool Q while a cop stands near taking pot shots at them with a .45. Good suggestion dude that just added another goofy element to the whole thing. As soon as I get the latest build stable you'll have your BloodSport city to play with :)

1 - Copy or unpack ScriptHook.dll, ScriptHookDotNet.asi and xlive.dll (or other ASI loader) into the root of GTAIV.

2 - Create a scripts folder off the root of GTAIV

3 - Copy or unpack the contents of AmbientWars into the scripts folder.

4 - Load the game using LaunchGTAIV.exe (if using XLiveLess) or the game directly if using other loaders that support direct EXE launch.

5 - Enter the world and confirm ScriptHook is working by pressing the tilde key. If the command console opens then you have done it correctly and ScriptHook is running so press again to close the console.

5b- Optional: type ReloadScripts into the console and confirm ScriptHook reloads 3 scripts from AmbientWars. This 100% confirms ScriptHook is working in the game and can also be used after changing AmbientWars.ini file settings to have it reload your changes without needing to restart the game. If this is your intent then toggle AW off (F9 is default to toggle on/off), make changes, ReloadScripts, toggle back on, test changes.

6 - Press the Ambient Wars hotkey (F9 is default). If you see your health and armor flash and grow then AW has turned ON. If you see your health go to full and the armor flash between 50 and 100 then AW has toggled OFF.

7 - Let the carnage begin!

Let me know which part of this is unclear and I will assist you with it.

Also for future reference, instead of just giving something a * vote without ever having tried it, and without ever having asked anywhere at all in the support thread, try instead asking for help? You'll very likely get it. A lot of it. Thanks!

No problem. It's under active development and has known issues which are and will be addressed over time, however it is mostly functional and many folks are having a good time with the chaos it provides, including me :)

please help! can u make a vid where to put the xlive.dll scripthookdotnet.asi sripthook.dll and where i put the ambient wars file???thx... btw im using gta 4 1.0.4.... i cant make ambient wars to start i press f9 nothing happens so there might be a problem where i put the files.... please help me with this problem

Because AW uses a mixture of objects including a number wrapped by SHDN, the SHDN has to be a new enough version with the critial bugs identified by AW that were fixed inside SHDN which is why a certain minimum version of SHDN is listed in the requirements file. And AFAIK to use SHDN with that really old 1.0.4 game version you have to use a really old version of SHDN, which would not work with AW for the reasons just described.

This version is more stable I think than the last one and can also be combined with Hippiecommunist’s Contact Missions mod. So you can add heavily armed terrorists (from terrorist hunt mission option) to the panic of the city!

One question; I tried to alter the parameters in the mayhem options in order to have more cars exploding (like in the previous version) but although I tried many numbers (from 1 to 1000) in the mayhem configuration options (cars tanks and engines explosions, mayhem per tick rate etc) I didn’t have the effect. Can anyone please tell me what parameters do I have to use in order to have many cars explode by themselves in the streets of LC?

Hello... i seem to be getting this mod to work by checking scripthook and everything, everything is installed... but nothings happening. there arent any wars or anything going on, nothing is happening. it is all correctly installed according to your instructions. whats up?

Amazing mod; however, once I downloaded it, I could no longer play any multiplayer game, infinite loading screen, might be because of the combination of my mods, but they usually let me play as long as I don't enable the scripts... idk.

I have a weird issue with this mod; Sometimes a "save"-screen pops up?? It just pauses the game and gives a screen with a list of save-games and I could save one there... Why the heck does it pop up? I'm just walking around. Although, I must say, things like this happens when I crouch. Does it have to do with some kind of key-combination? I also got the vehicle-spawner in my face once. Very annoying, I don't know what's causing this. Are there any specific key-commands and could I disable them?

Ah, I did some digging and it is indeed the combination of CTRL+S that brings up a save-screen. Isn't this a default keymap? If so, then why on Earth did you think mapping the crouch and backward key together to bring up a menu was a good idea? XD

I was thinking I f-ed up my GTAIV so much with modding that I would get weird results by pressing certain keys, but it was simply when I would crouch and walk backwards, making this mod bring up the save-screen. lol